In short: if corporations can make money by telling lies, auditors make money by making sure the lies aren't revealed.
This is, of course, the very opposite of what auditors are supposed to do - they are supposed to ensure that the operators of a company (management) aren't misleading the owners of the company (shareholders.) According to the Radio National programme, the historical function of an 'auditor' (Latin: one who listens) was to listen to the accountant tell the feudal lord about the running of the feofdom, and to report any inconsistencies. It appears, increasingly, that the auditor and the accountant are in cahoots.
The programme also suggested that the Big-4 auditing firms are too big to fail. Corporations are so large and complex that (to hear them tell it) you need almost equally large and complex corporations to audit them. Now that Arthur Andersen has been destroyed, there are only four firms left in the world who can audit the corporate giants astride our globe. So they say.
There may be another angle to approach this problem though: The Short Seller. Short selling is essentially betting that the share price of a company will fall. It's been banned in some places, but should it have been?
Apparently, and in retrospect fairly obviously, there are companies like this which appear to specialise in finding the unpleasant truths about a company and exposing them ... presumably allowing the savvy seeker-after-truth (and profit) to take a short position on that company's shares. These guys are paid to uncover lies when auditors are paid to cover up.
I'm no big fan of free market capitalism, but it seems to me that this kind of short selling would do what the (very poorly) regulated auditors won't: tell the truth. And the truth shall set you free ... maybe.
